


The Pet Store Anomaly

by mithril_owl



Category: Megamind (2010)
Genre: And right now that is my fish, But Not For Long!, Fluff and Humor, Gen, I Tried, Minion is briefly sick, Pre-Canon, Sometimes you need to write about what makes you happy, The Author Regrets Nothing, fish care, questionable science, that's mostly it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29901258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mithril_owl/pseuds/mithril_owl
Summary: Megamind is forced to make an emergency stop at a pet store for Minion, and (unwillingly) makes a friend.
Relationships: Megamind & Minion
Comments: 19
Kudos: 29





	The Pet Store Anomaly

**Author's Note:**

> I originally started this as a joke when I brought my betta home, but it took on a life of its own. Is it incredibly self indulgent? Absolutely. But I was (and still am!) incredibly smitten with my fish so I said the heck with it and finally decided to finish it. Shout out to any fellow fish owners!

The tiny bell chimed over his head and Megamind cringed as the sound immediately set off a chain reaction of screeching from the bird cages at the opposite end of the store.

Today he was wearing the face of a kindly old Indian man that owned one of the restaurants under his protection. Anand would probably not appreciate having his likeness used in such a manner, but when has that ever stopped Megamind? (Although the risk of no longer being able to enjoy the most amazing korma in all of Metrocity certainly gave him enough pause to consider removing Anand from the database.)

Megamind absentmindedly rubbed the strap of his disguise watch. They were on the second prototype, and the internal processor was _still_ overheating. Wool had proven to be an effective insulator when preventing another square-shaped burn on his wrist, although the constant irritation against his skin led them right back to the drawing board.

But there is important business to take care of first, and he will gladly put up with a few more minutes of discomfort for the sake of his best friend.

…although it could be an indefinite amount of discomfort at this rate. There appeared to be no discernible order to any of the aisles and he felt hopelessly lost. Where the _hell_ was he supposed to go??

This would probably be easier if he chose one store and stuck with it to familiarize himself with the store layout. But Megamind never makes a habit of visiting the same place twice, even while wearing a disguise. It’s worked just fine for him after all these years-- it’s a big enough city; stores are constantly popping up or shutting down. Normally on these trips he buys their entire stock of fish flakes and disappears for a few years until Minion needs more food. On the rare occasion his life-long friend has been sick, Megamind was able to take care of it himself… but this came on so suddenly he was completely unprepared.

Megamind wandered aimlessly around a display of fancy dog treats and focused on his breathing, desperately fighting the rising panic brought on by the fluorescent lights and the cacophony of animal and human sounds. Someone apparently brought their dog inside and Megamind is _seriously_ regretting his store choice today. Maybe a faceless chain corporation would have been the safer option? Small pet shop employees are more knowledgeable but they can be incredibly chatty. He does _not_ need the additional stress of social anxiety when he’s already on edge about Minion.

With a low sigh of frustration, he turned to leave when a high voice called his attention.

“Hi there! Can I help you find anything today?”

Megamind’s head whipped around, momentarily taken aback as the incredibly chipper young girl skipped to the front of the store. Her wavy pink bob bounced with each step and the movement caused the collection of animal pins on her oversized vest to rattle in tandem. Beneath a school of glittery dolphin stickers, he could vaguely read the name Misty on her bedazzled nametag.

“Yes- where is your fish section?” he finally managed to ask.

“Right this way! Was there anything in particular you were looking for?” Misty took off like a greyhound and Megamind had to scramble to keep up with her as she led him towards the back of the store.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any sodium thiosulfate?” he nearly ran into her when she stopped; the void left in the absence of her perpetual energy was mildly disorienting.

Misty looked up at him owlishly beneath her curtain of faded pink bangs. “I… what??”

Megamind paced along the aisle and traced his fingers along the yellow paper price tags, desperately hoping the right product would jump out at him right away.

“Sodium thiosulfate,” he repeated. “It removes chlorine and other organic impurities from the city’s water. I would normally synthesize it myself but I’m on a time crunch. I don’t have two days to make a new batch. Min-- my fish is not feeling his greatest right now, so it seems cruel to make him suffer.”

“Oh! You’re probably looking for something like a water conditioner! Wait- when did your little guy start feeling sick?”

“Almost a week ago to the date,” Megamind replied uncomfortably. It’s incredibly difficult for him to talk about Minion as though he’s his pet, let alone his “little” anything given how much he towers over Megamind in his robot body. Another reason why he saves these visits for emergencies only.

“Oh, you’re not the only one with an upset fish. The city’s water commission recently dumped a ton of chloramine into the water to kill off a major bacteria bloom. Which is all well and good for humans -- not that I drink Metro’s tap water anyway!” she pulled a face and made a small ‘ _blech!_ ’ sound. “But it wasn’t anything heavily publicized, so a lot of owners have had some really sick fishies.”

Ah, so their hypothesis _was_ correct. It’s comforting to finally have answers, because Megamind wasn’t entirely sure about what happened and had briefly panicked. Minion suddenly started gagging after his last water change and complained the water tasted like bleach, so their best guess was the water treatment plant upped their dosage of chlorine beyond what Minion’s filtration could handle and they had run out of sodium thiosulfate fairly quickly. His gills were puffy and he spent a lot of time sitting on the bottom of his dome.

He hadn’t considered the possibility of chloramination. But it made perfect sense in hindsight- chlorine on its own might not be enough to neutralize a significant increase in bacteria, which would necessitate the addition of ammonia, binding with hypochlorous acid to form monochloramine… which, if treated like pure chlorine, still leaves traces of ammonia behind.

“Oh, it’s been a huge issue for our fish parents,” Misty continued. “I’m really glad your little guy is doing okay. You may want to get some stress coat as well- it’s similar to a water conditioner, but it helps rebuild their slime coat!”

She placed a smaller bottle into Megamind’s tanned hand and he raised a grey eyebrow at the smiling cartoon fish on the label wearing a stethoscope.

“Interesting,” Megamind flipped the bottle over, reviewing the list of ingredients. Aloe- Minion would probably like that. He enjoyed the smell and seemed to be fond of the little plant he kept in the kitchen. And god knows Megamind isn’t necessarily the easiest person to care for… it would probably be a good thing to brew up in bulk.

“What kind of fish do you have?”

“He’s a… he’s a piranha.” Megamind responded. It’s not an outright lie-- they’re the closes species of fish on this planet to share enough chromosomes with his friend, but it’s not a perfect match. Minion’s a piranha as much as Megamind is a human.

“I love taking care of fish. Do you have any pictures?”

“I don’t, no.” Megamind responded with a polite terseness, praying to any god or deity that might be listening to finally allow this interaction to end. Misty, in her effervescent extroversion, did not take the hint.

“And you said his name is Min? Short for Minion, probably?”

The bottle of stress coat fell from his slack grip and Megamind’s stomach dropped into his borrowed salt-stained boots; the frantic sound of his pounding heart filled his ears as he fought to control his shallow breathing. How did she--?!

Misty scooped up the little bottle and continued with a broad smile, blissfully oblivious to her customer’s internal panic and the imminent threat of dehydration.

“You’re probably the five-hundredth person I’ve met in Metro City to name their fish Minion! They’re not always piranhas like your little guy. Mostly bettas- they’re _really_ popular with little kids.”

Megamind is… surprisingly touched. Alarmingly so. The new information leaves him feeling incredibly off-balance.

“Really?” he squeaked.

“Of course, why wouldn’t they! Metro Man and Megamind are so ingrained in the culture of Metro City, it’s as common as a kid naming their mouse Mickey. Minion is obviously the most popular one, but a lot of pets end up with a name in a similar theme. Half of the kids who leaves the store with a blue animal end up calling it Megamind, whether the parents like it or not.”

Megamind can’t speak or he might actually cry. As his brain frantically worked to reconcile this new information (and the baffling emotions that came with it), the cracked screen of Misty’s phone danced in front of his unfocused eyes. Ah, it seems she’s moved on in the conversation. With a firm blink, he focused on the picture of a fish hidden behind a plastic plant. The only part of the photo that isn’t blurred are the hearts that have been digitally added to the image.

“Here’s my boy Poseidon. I was gonna name him Minion but my girlfriend beat me to it.”

As Misty continued to chatter aimlessly about her menagerie (and her tarantula named _Roxanne_ ), Megamind followed her to the cash register in a daze and bought every single up-sell she was obligated to ask him about.

* * *

Megamind made it back to the lair in a record nine minutes and seventeen seconds. The brainbots barely had time to gather and greet him before he was sprinting downstairs to the reef pool in the basement, nearly overbalancing from the weight of the bags.

After a somewhat perilous journey down the narrow steps, Megamind felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders as the warm smell of salt water hit his nose. Across the room the gloomy husk of Minion’s suit loomed against the wall. Megamind heaved the overflowing bags onto the floor and immediately busied himself with his preparations. Minion surfaced upon hearing his friend’s footsteps and swam to the shallow end of the pool.

“How are you feeling, my fantastic fish?” Megamind called over his shoulder.

“A bit better! Switching salinity always makes me feel a little woozy, but anything beats that tank.”

Megamind bit the inside of his cheek to suppress the sigh of relief that dared to escape at the sound of his soft splashing. He was going to be fine; just breathe and get to work.

“We were right about the water, Minion.” Megamind continued as he tore into the packaging, briefly struggling with the plastic film. “I found something that should hopefully neutralize the chloramines in a pinch. I’m going to reverse-engineer the formula, though I suspect it has to be another sodium compound. Regardless! We shall not be caught with our shirts off again!”

Minion politely ignored the misnomer and smiled fondly at his friend.

“Will you be fine in the pool for a bit longer? I want to run some tests on the processed water, and I don’t know how long it will take to achieve miscibility with this… ‘water conditioner.’”

“I’ll be okay,” Minion’s fins splashed happily against the surface.

After a brief trip upstairs to gather a few tools missing from the basement lab (Supervillain Perk #45: fully equipped labs for every floor of your evil lair!) Megamind began his tests, dumping liberal amounts of the liquid into five separate beakers.

“Are we going to have enough, Sir?” Minion hedged cautiously.

“Hm? Oh, no- that wasn’t the only bottle that I bought.”

“I’ll say,” Minion said as his wide brown eyes landed on the absolutely overflowing bag. “What on earth did you get??”

Megamind paused to unceremoniously dump the contents of the bag on the floor. Among the contents were several jars of fish food--

“Brine shrimp! Oh, Sir- you spoil me.”

“Yes, try not to make yourself sick like you did with the blood worms,” Megamind huffed affectionately.

\--in addition to seven bottles of water conditioner, two tubes of stress coat, four new tank decorations, and a baffling arrangement of cat toys and treats.

“Do you like freeze dried minnows, Minion?” he lifted a bag with a smiling cat chomping into a cartoon fish.

Minion made a vague noise of confused discomfort.

“That’s fine, we can feed it to one of the cats in the alley.” He dropped it back into the mess, displacing a can of daphinia as it rolled into the pool with a gentle splash. “Or the rats can eat them, I don’t care- I’m feeling generous.”

Minion blinked at the bag, staring at the colourful mice strewn against the concrete floor.

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking… why are there so many cat toys?”

“The overwhelmingly polite teenager at the store kept asking me if I wanted them and I was too flustered to say anything but yes. She has a promising career in sales.”

(Misty had not _directly_ asked him to buy that many cat toys, but he legitimately had only been able to say ‘yes’ and so she kept scanning barcodes until she ran out of stock at the counter. She was mildly nervous to reveal the grand total, but he’d waved his card without even blinking… so Misty finally allowed herself to bask in the best sale of her career at MacPac Pets.)

(Her picture was in the next issue of the corporate newsletter.)

“But _why_ did you buy them?!” Minion tried again.

“For the brainbots,” Megamind responded absentmindedly as he measured the water conditioner into the little cap. “I don’t think any of them will care much for the catnip but the different colours and textures should entertain the horde. Some of them make noise… although I suspect those ones might _mysteriously_ disappear.”

Unable to think of a response, Minion instead dove into the water and swam lazy circles in the deep end. It was nice to stretch his fins every so often. But spending too much time in salt water did make him feel tired. It took a bit of time to re-condition his muscles for longer swims. Maybe he could convince Sir to re-fill the freshwater tank? Sixty gallons is more than enough room.

When he finally resurfaced in the shallows, Megamind triumphantly hoisted a test tube into the air with a whoop.

“Sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate!” he declared, hastily writing it down in that combination of letters and numbers that made Minion’s head spin. “Possibly with an ammonia binder; I’ll have to play around with it.”

“That’s wonderful, Sir!”

“I think it’s safe to begin the process of moving you back into the suit, if you’re ready?” Megamind asked. He palmed Minion’s spare dome and poked his head over the edge of the pool.

Minion nodded, swimming into the open lid of the little transport container. He hummed happily as they moved towards the osmoregulation tank.

* * *

After several hours (and several games of charades through the glass), Megamind stood up with a long stretch and began the final stage of transferring Minion back into his robotic suit. It was always the most stressful part since so much could go wrong in those precious few moments where Minion was out of the water.

(He’d only dropped him _once_ when they were very young, but Minion still liked to tease him about it.)

The dome sealed with a soft click and Minion stretched his fins with a little shiver. Slowly, the metal gorilla body shuddered back to life as the neural link was re-established. Lights and fans thrummed beneath the low rumble of the filter and Megamind finally felt the gnawing anxiety that had plagued him all day fade into nothingness.

Minion rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers in the familiar pattern they had developed years ago. As Minion dutifully worked through the dexterity exercises, Megamind glanced thoughtfully at the empty tube of stress coat bearing the anatomically incorrect goldfish with a toothy grin.

“Minion, did you know people name their pets after us?” he said in a low and pensive voice.

“What?” Minion blinked in confusion. His fingers twitched at the baffling interruption.

“Nevermind. Now then!” the gorilla suit staggered back a step at the abrupt change in volume. “Back to work, filet mignon! We can delay the deployment of the spee-ider bot for another day, but ee-vil must maintain its schedule!”

Minion followed close behind at his friend’s heels and smiled for the entire duration of the elevator ride.

**Author's Note:**

> I know nothing about chemistry, but I did my best to piece together what I could with my sources. If I have anything backwards please let me know!
> 
> Also, if you'd like to see what Misty looks like check out my [Tumblr](https://owlinabasket.tumblr.com/post/645014876350283776/misty-from-the-pet-store-anomaly-she-was-so).
> 
> (The reef pool is lovingly borrowed from Dalniente. I think the euryhalinity may have also been inspired by one of their fics as well? Idk, I've subconsciously accepted a lot of Dal's headcanons in my own brain XD although I went with more of a freshwater spin.)


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